Bridal Shower
by Eh Bien
Summary: Two days before Edward and Bella's wedding, the Cullens give Bella an informal welcome into the family.


For once, I was having a relaxing evening. With the wedding two days away, I now spent much of my time suppressing feelings of overwhelming stage fright. At least I did not have to deal with the in-law problems so many brides faced. My prospective husband's family were as crazy about me as I was about them. One less worry.

The Cullen house felt more like home than ever. Extra pre-wedding attention aside, I felt perfectly at ease lounging in their oversized living room. Edward was at his piano, softly playing a selection of my favourites. Esme was sharing odd wedding customs of the 1920's with me, filling me in on what flappers wore to get married, while Alice toyed experimentally with my hair, fine-tuning her hairdressing plans for the Big Day. Emmett was in the corner with the television, cheering on the Red Sox and throwing out occasional jokes about the coming event, mostly centered on the possibility of my tripping on my way up the aisle. Rose sat next to him, not really joining in the discussion, but also not giving off waves of disapproval, as she had in the past. Jasper perched on the arm of a chair, seeming to sample the emotions around him like a wine taster. Carlisle was reading in a far corner, taking in the conversation and seeming happy at our mutual concord.

"Just remember, don't come anywhere near this place for the next two days. Not until you arrive for the wedding." Alice glared at me sternly.

"Alice!" Esme chided her gently. "You make it sound like Bella's not welcome here."

"Oh, she knows I don't mean it like that!" Alice brushed it aside, then glanced worriedly at me to make sure. I gave her a grin, and she smiled back. "I just don't want her seeing the wedding venue in advance. Some of the things have to be set up a day ahead."

"I'll keep my distance," I promised.

"If Bella won't be here again until the day of, we should hand out the presents now," Emmett suggested.

"Presents?" I felt myself cringing.

"Bella. When you get married, you get presents." Alice raised her eyebrows at Jasper, who rose and flitted upstairs, returning seconds later with a gaudy rectangular parcel, obviously wrapped by Alice. "Esme convinced me you wouldn't want a real bridal shower, so I cancelled that idea." I threw Esme a look of gratitude. "Even though I had a wonderful idea for the theme," she pouted. I didn't want to ask. Chicago mobster-themed bridal shower? Opium den? Elizabethan brothel? With Alice, who knew. "So you can at least deal graciously with a gift or two." I nodded, resigned.

With something just short of a bow, Jasper presented me with the ornately decorated box. "For you and Edward, with our very best wishes for your future happiness." His nineteenth century formality sharply contrasted to Alice hopping up and down, chanting, "Open! Open!"

I looked warningly at Jasper as I started to tear off the wrapping paper. "Stand clear!" He chuckled, accepting the shared joke as confirmation that there were no hard feelings about his attempt to kill and exsanguinate me. These things happen.

Edward left the piano and wandered over to join me as I carefully opened the box. Inside was a perfectly gorgeous photo album, bound in maroon leather with brass fittings. "For your wedding pictures," Alice told me, grinning from ear to ear. "We plan to take a lot of them."

I thanked her and Jasper as Emmett jumped to his feet and handed me a small jeweller's case tied with a ribbon. "From me and Rose."

Inside was a small, oval pendant on a chain. When I picked it up to examine it more closely, I realized it was a miniature version of the family crest the others sometimes wore. I looked up to find Rosalie standing beside Emmett. "To welcome you to the family," she explained. I had to admit, she was making a real effort to be nice.

I thanked them, a little shyly, amazed as always at how completely they accepted me as one of them. Emmett grinned at me. "Rosie thought we should make it small, in case you wanted to put it on that charm bracelet you wear sometimes."

"Yes, that's a great idea. I'll do that."

Alice giggled. "All you need now is a hot car, and you're officially a Cullen."

I rolled my eyes at the familial car fetish. "The tank-proof one doesn't qualify?" Everyone laughed, as Esme flitted into the dining room and returned instantly with a flat, white box.

"Not really a gift, as such," she explained with a smile. "More like...returning something to its rightful owner." She handed me the box with an especially tender look.

I could see Edward catch her eye and smile to himself. Mystified, I opened the box and started to draw out the contents. "Oh! What a beautiful picture frame..." I began to say, then stopped in surprise. The etched glass frame contained a sepia-toned photograph of Edward, wearing clothing from an earlier decade. He sat in a carefully arranged pose in front of a photographer's backdrop, holding his hat on his knee and looking solemnly into the camera. I stared at it a moment.

"Do you remember when I showed you our wedding photographs?" Esme asked me.

I nodded, looking up from the framed picture. It had been a few weeks ago, and Alice had been talking wedding, as usual, which led to my being shown pictures from Rosalie's and Emmett's weddings. All of them. Then Esme had brought out a small folder containing three slightly faded photographs. "It was just the three of us," Esme had reminisced, "at this little church almost nobody went to, in the middle of the week. We wanted as few people around as possible. I was less than a year old at the time, and still not too good at being around humans." I nodded in understanding. "After the ceremony, Carlisle noticed a sign in a photographer's shop across the street, 'no appointment necessary - four portraits $8.00'. Getting your picture taken was a much bigger deal in those days, of course. We went in and had these taken." She showed me the three prints: one of Esme and Carlisle standing side by side, Carlisle in a pale, oddly cut suit and Esme in a striking Twenties style dress and cloche hat; a second of Carlisle sitting stiffly in a high backed chair with Esme posed at his side; and a third picture of the two of them with Edward.

"You all look like you're about to laugh," I had told her.

Esme smiled. "We were! Edward was in such high spirits that day, he kept making us laugh." She smiled at Carlisle, remembering. "That annoyed the photographer terribly, because in those days, nobody was supposed to smile in a photograph. We tried to look serious until the photographer clicked the shutter, then we all burst out laughing at once."

I studied the familiar faces looking back at me from 60-odd years before I was born. "You said four portraits. Where's the fourth one?"

"Oh," Esme had looked over at Edward, "that one's...missing."

Now I looked back down at Edward's photograph. "This was the fourth picture?"

"Yes." Carlisle smiled at Edward. "After the first three were taken, Esme convinced Edward to sit for a fourth one, by himself. She said it would be a nice keepsake for Edward's future wife. He objected, of course, but Esme insisted. She said he'd meet her someday..."

"...and we would put the picture away for safekeeping until then," Esme finished. "Of course, we had no idea we would be hanging onto it for quite such a long time!"

"But it's...very good to see the picture reach its destination at last," Carlisle said.

I looked down again at the image of Edward's face, looking toward the camera with a serious, thoughtful expression. Looking, I realized, at me, although he hadn't known it at the time. I turned toward him to find him staring at me with an expression that made me drop my eyes. I turned back to Carlisle and Esme. "Thank you," I told them. "Thank you so much, everyone. It's the best bridal shower anybody ever had."


End file.
